Things I’ve learned while working for a recruiting firm

Since moving to the Capital Region in June 2011, three things have remained constant: my husband, this blog, and the position I held with a local recruiting agency. With the introduction of baby Jay in August, my life (obviously) drastically changed. As time has passed, I’ve evolved as a new mom, and as a passionately creative person, I’ve also evolved professionally. I’m more than ready to return to work full-time after working part time these past few months, though it’s impossible for me to move on to my new position without having some sort of closure in my current place of employment.

So – what have I learned while working for a local recruiting agency?

1 – People are competitive. I started to become this person a little more than I’m comfortable with and had to check myself at times.

2 – You never really get to the top. You just have to feel comfortable where you are while somehow, at the same time, strive for the next goal without losing sight of enjoying the moment. This is hard.

3. Employment, job searches, the “right” career path – it’s all confusing and overwhelming for nearly everyone, all the time.

4 – Being driven is cool. Having an on and off switch for that drive is even cooler (see no. 2.)

6 – It’s difficult to prove yourself as perfectly capable to succeed after announcing your pregnancy. You feel as though the whole (professional) world is watching and waiting for you to slip up. Pregnancy=professional paranoia.

7 – It’s even more difficult to control the urge to roll your eyes when someone makes a snide remark about working moms/children’s needs/etc. when they lack children of their own. Nothing ever needs to be said. Nothing.

8 – The difficulty to juggle work, family, and play is continuous, but you eventually get used to it. And start slaying life. (Oh, backed into the garage door? NO BIGGIE. I make the best iced coffee from home, best ever, so what about it? Oh, yeah, and I can make bottles/fold towels / talk on the phone / and text / and cook / and tweet about it all, simultaneously. And I’m wearing lipstick.) Boom. Slayed.

9 – I’ve gained a ton of experience, confidence, and great memories, while at the same time carving out just what I want for myself and my family in the long run.

10 – I feel full, happy, accomplished. I have good friends from this experience. And I’m eager.

11 – More eager than I’ve ever been in my life. Must’ve came with the baby.

12 – And that life – well, it’s pretty darn good.

Stephanie Snyder

4 Responses

I wonder if #6 is a matter of perception? I worked in different places during each of my two pregnancies. In both cases, I definitely knew that I was expected to maintain the quality of my work – I think that was even an internal expectation of myself – but I never really felt like people were taking bets as to when I’d mess up because of hormones or new mommy syndrome or anything like that. Aside from the 6 weeks of maternity leave, pregnancy and new motherhood was barely a blip on my professional radar. And that was 10 years ago – I would have thought work culture with respect to this issue would have improved even more since then. Maybe it also depends on the field.

#7 – I had a female boss, who, when I took a day off to tend to sick kids, said, “Oh, believe me, I get it. My dogs had a terrible case of diarreah last week and I totally contemplated staying home with them”. Sympathetic Mom-to-Mom attempt: fail.

#6 pertains more to networking events – I should’ve been more clear. I was constantly asked what my plans were, and on more than one occasion was challenged with career-motherhood related comments that were anything but encouraging.

Steph- I agree with #6. I was well established in my job when I announced I was pregnant. I do work with mostly men in a male-dominated industry, so maybe that affected my experience though. All my male bosses would try to ask me in a non-judgmental way if I was coming back to work. I am the lead on many projects, so frankly, they are screwed without me, so I think they just wanted to make sure I would be back.

I actually had a few people say that once I had a kid I would never come back to work… that their wife didn’t work or something else. I like my job and am fine with working so that was never an issue.

I think a lot of the perception is that 1. I don’t work with a lot of women and 2. the few that did work at my company left to have kids and never came back or came back on reduced hours. There were also some who came back and couldn’t handle working with kids and were not good workers after. Yes this is true and this is the environment I had to deal with. Now that I have been doing this for 3 years, my bosses see that I can clearly handle being a working mom. I didn’t take any of this personally, but I feel that I did have to prove more than a man would that a child would not affect my work.

“I feel that I did have to prove more than a man would that a child would not affect my work”

That feels like a victimist outlook. We “prove” ourselves by showing up and doing good work. This is also known simply as “doing our jobs”. It doesn’t have to be emotionalized or stigmatized just because we happen to be women. We do good work before baby, we continue doing good work after baby. Period. Doubters, insensitive commenters and the like are irrelavant.

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